ERIC EJ726263: The Debate Within: Authority and the Discourse of Blindness

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The Debate Within: Authority and the Discourse of Blindness - January 2006
JVIB
January 2006 • Volume 100 • Number 1
The Debate Within: Authority and
the Discourse of Blindness
Scott Lunsford
Abstract: This article reviews three articles that add to the debate on the
terminology that is used to represent people who are blind. It argues that
authority is not limited to just one person or one organization, but is shared
through an intertextuality, or utterance, of other authorities, and that conflict
within blind discourse communities does not dissolve the notion of
community--as exemplified by the attempts by several organizations for
people who are blind to express individual and competing desires for
"appropriate" terminology.
Bolt (2004) was right to have entitled his Comment "The
Terminology Debate Continues." In his earlier Comment,
"Blindness and the Problems of Terminology," Bolt (2003)
proposed a new term, persons with a visual inhibition, to replace
the collective phrase the blind. Wittenstein (2004) entered the
debate through a letter to the editor, a response to Bolt's initial
comment. Wittenstein argued succinctly that people who are blind
should decide how they would like to be described (p. 133). The
letter to the editor and Bolt's response to Wittenstein appeared
side by side in the March 2004 issue of this journal. In his initial
comment, Bolt (2003) invoked many forms of authority: the
National Federation of the Blind (NFB) and its past president
Kenneth Jernigan, blind scholar Georgina Kleege, psychologist
Donald Kirtley, and a dictionary. By writing the comment and
publishing it in an academic journal, Bolt further assumed a role
of authority. Wittenstein, himself an authority figure--that is, the
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superintendent of the California School for the Blind--deferred
authority to those who are blind. The third comment (Bolt, 2004)
in this sequence of responses revealed to me--and presumedly to
Wittenstein--another authoritative aspect of Bolt's writing: his
blindness.
The authors of these comments are two authorities on blindness
discourse, yet each has his own viewpoint on what terms should
be used and who should determine the use of the terms. I assume
that Wittenstein did not realize that Bolt was blind when he wrote
his letter to the editor. Had Wittenstein known, would he have
joined the conversation? Perhaps not. This chance does not negate
the argument, however, since Wittenstein incited, albeit briefly,
an argument for continuing the debate: Who gets to choose
descriptors about blindness?
My purpose is to enter the debate at this point, although I hold no
authority about what it means to be blind. I am not legally blind,
so my part of the conversation comes from the perspective of that
of a sighted rhetorician who advocates for disability rights.
However, I must presently turn away from that advocacy and lean
on the first half of my own self-ascription. As a rhetorician, I am
concerned with the use of language: how it constructs power for
some and thus how it subjugates others. I may ask myself, Why
do I have authority to speak about the discourse of blindness? To
answer this question briefly, I turn to another rhetorician, Glenn
(2004), who noted in the introduction to her book, Unspoken: A
Rhetoric of Silence, that
the complexity and difficulty in naming, ascribing, and identifying
roles is beyond me, beyond any one of us. Whatever attributions I
associate with myself resonate with some sort of overarching governing
narrative by which I figure and refigure my bodily, social, and
intellectual selves. If I cannot handle identifying myself, can I claim to
identify others? (p. xxii)
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My authority, then, comes from an attempt to understand how the
power of language shapes and is shaped by reality, not from an
attempt to seek the authority to label.
On this issue, I do not side with Bolt or Wittenstein--although I
may agree with each on certain points--in their question, Who
gets to choose? I only examine arguments that are related to this
question to ask other questions: What does authority mean within
a discourse community? What if everyone within the community
does not agree on terminology? Does that disagreement negate
the ideology of the whole community? If Wittenstein (2004)
asserted that "the blind" should "lead the terminology decision-
making process" (p. 133), who is he talking about? All blind
people? Or perhaps someone in the blind community who has the
authority to lead the process? As with every discourse
community, leaders will emerge and others will follow--or resist.
Authority and utterance
To analyze authority within blindness discourse, I follow literary
theorist Bakhtin's notions of authoritative and internally
persuasive discourses and his theory of utterance. Bakhtin (1989)
discussed two modes of discourse. The first, authoritative
discourse,
demands that we acknowledge [the authoritative word], that we make it
our own; it binds us.… The authoritative word is located in a distanced
zone, organically connected with a past that is felt to be hierarchically
higher. It is, so to speak, the word of the fathers. Its authority was
already acknowledged in the past. (p. 342)
Furthermore, "authoritative discourse permits no play with the
context framing it, no play with its borders, no gradual and
flexible transitions, no spontaneously creative stylizing variants
on it" (Bakhtin, 1989, p. 343). In other words, the authoritative
word is fixed. This fixed discourse helps to solidify the ideologies
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of a community: Members share the same values, beliefs,
language, and terminology.
Contrasted with authoritative discourse is the second form, an
internally persuasive discourse. The internally persuasive word,
according to Bakhtin (1989),
is half-ours and half-someone else's. Its creativity and productiveness
consist precisely in the fact that such a word awakens new and
independent words, that it organizes masses of words from within, and
does not remain in an isolated and static condition. (p. 345)
Once words are uttered, orally, in writing, or through some
communicative agency, they are no longer fully the originator's
words.
Bakhtin (1986) termed these communicative means "utterances,"
which can be any signifier-signified relationship: a textbook,
everyday conversation, or even people who are alone with their
thoughts. The important thing to know about utterances is that
they do not exist in themselves. A sentence, for example, is not an
utterance unless it is responded to or somehow becomes attached
to meaning. "I am visually impaired" is a sentence, but its
constituent four words mean nothing until the person who is
stating the sentence is responded to. It is the perception of
blindness that makes a person blind, whether it is a self-
perception or the perception of others, and that perception is
presented through some response. A boy may grow up without
the perception that he has low vision because he sees the world
through this impairment as "normal." He does not have any other
comparable screen through which to view his world. It is not
until, for example, his father witnesses through his own "normal"
eyesight that his son is stumbling or performing something that is
not "quite right" that his father may suggest, on the basis of his
own notion of what "normal" vision is, that his son's vision should
be checked. The father's action is a response to his son's
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performative sentence--in this case, the son "acting" visually
impaired--that fulfills the utterance. There is now meaning to the
sentence, an utterance.
Utterances, then, have a history. They exist because someone has
uttered words before and someone else takes them into the future,
adding to their meaning. For Bakhtin (1986, p. 69), "any utterance
is a link in a very complexly organized chain of other utterances."
There is a sense of intertextuality because "all texts are
interdependent: We understand a text only insofar as we
understand its precursors" (Porter, 1986, p. 34). Intertextuality
defies the notion of a true, single author, since all texts, all
utterances, are born from and incorporate other texts. Porter, a
composition theorist, gave the example of the writing of the
Declaration of Independence, whose author was historically
believed to have been Thomas Jefferson. Yet tracing the
document reveals other sources, such as a First Continental
Congress resolution, a Massachusetts Council declaration, and
even a colonial play (p. 36). Although we can agree that Jefferson
had an authority that gave him the ethos to write the Declaration
of Independence, we cannot ignore the fact that there were other
authors/authorities whom he consulted. Thus, according to Porter,
"authorial intention is less significant than social context; the
writer is simply a part of a discourse tradition, a member of a
team, and a participant in a community of discourse that creates
its own collective meaning" (p. 35). Through these theories of
utterances and intertextuality, then, one can consider how
blindness discourse becomes debatable: There is no one "true"
terminology that can be used, for every word and its meaning
beget another word and meaning that someone will disagree with.
The debate begins
To reiterate, Bolt (2003) proposed an alternative phrase to the
blind: persons with a visual inhibition. He cited Jernigan, former
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president of NFB, who argued against the person-first principle
that is advocated by many people with disabilities. According to
Bolt, NFB argues that the phrase people who are blind is "un-
acceptable as a form of political correctness," amounting to a
"strained and ludicrous endeavor to avoid such straightforward,
respectable words as blindness, blind, the blind, blind person, or
blind persons." Bolt countered the NFB argument, saying that one
of those "straightforward, respectable words" [blind] is anything
but straightforward (quoted in Bolt, 2003, p. 519). As proof, Bolt
referred to a dictionary definition of blind, citing 13 entries in a
1999 edition of Encarta World English Dictionary (1999). Only
one definition, he said, is related to the medical condition. Ten of
the entries focus on metaphorical meanings, relegated to the
pejorative. Thus, to get away from the pejorative meanings
ascribed to the blind, Bolt considered the phrase persons with a
visual inhibition.
Wittenstein (2004) responded to Bolt by asking, "Why not let the
blind decide how they would like to be identified?… (sp)Let the
blind decide for themselves." He further argued, "Society should
affirm the rights of the blind to follow that process of self-
determination and let the blind lead the terminology decision-
making process" (p. 133). The use of these three instances of
"letting" within a three-paragraph letter may demonstrate
Wittenstein's adamancy that non-visually impaired people should
not choose what to call those who are visually impaired.
Wittenstein did not mention whether he is blind or not, but since
he is a superintendent of a school for blind students, one can
assume that he is at least an advocate. Of course, it would be
logistically impossible for blind people to agree unanimously on
an appropriate term to call themselves. But Wittenstein did not
argue for this impossibility. He argued that one person alone
cannot choose terminology that encapsulates a multitude of other
people. Perhaps Wittenstein did not realize that Bolt himself is
blind. Bolt (2003) did not mention this fact in his initial comment.
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He did so, however, in his 2004 response. Mentioning his own
blindness in his original comment may have given Bolt more
credibility and thus no reason for Wittenstein's response.
However, Bolt, in this new comment, addressed Wittenstein's
concern, saying,
I am tempted to ask just who is being encouraged to do this "letting." I
am tempted to assert that innovative, egalitarian ideas can be advanced
by all persons, irrespective of high or low visual acuity. I am tempted to
argue that "the blind" do not exist, that there is no such homogeneous
group. Instead I will play by the same rules as Wittenstein and simply
agree that "the blind" should indeed lead the discussion on terminology.
(p. 134)
One could argue that Bolt's publishing of a set of temptations is,
in reality, fulfilling those temptations. They are intent. But Bolt
backed away from it, calling Wittenstein's game--and authority--
by "playing by the same rules," as if the whole matter were a
sport.
It may be just that, at least metaphorically. Bolt played with the
words, modifying their forms, trying to pitch us something
"appropriate." In "The Terminology Debate Continues" (2004), he
stated that he also proposed the form persons with inhibited
vision, a phrase that is not much different from his original,
persons with a visual inhibition. Bolt personally received many
responses to his initial proposal. He noted that disabilities scholar
Lennard Davis, for example, advised that "the word inhibited has
connotations of someone who is repressed and awkward" (p.
133). Bolt struggled to find some neutral phrase and suggested
"the only accurate umbrella term,… (sp)persons with visual
disabilities" (p. 134). This "resolution" finally yielded Bolt's sense
of authority, since he stated at the end of this response that he has
been "registered as blind for nearly 20 years, which makes [him]
as much a representative of ‘the blind' as is anyone else, and
though [he] is not exactly leading, [he] certainly will go on
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contributing to the debate" (p. 134).
The debate deconstructed
The concept of the utterance is important throughout these three
texts. All three responses--and I can assign Bolt's first comment
as a response to the historical debate over terminology, even
though he introduced the topic in this set of articles--become
utterances through their interplay with each other. Within each
text, though, there is also a sense of utterance. Bolt's first
comment invoked the authorities of many agents, as I noted
earlier. Wittenstein invoked "the blind" as an authoritative entity
and suggested his own authority as a superintendent. Bolt's
second comment called on other scholars who personally
responded to him. These intertextual performances heightened the
sense of authority by "attempting to gain authority in their writing
by citing other authors" (Clough, 1996, p. 24).
At the same time, though, these textual performances complicate
the notion of authority. Taking Bakhtin's (1989) theory of
authoritative discourse, for example, there is no room to play with
words. Words have a history that has set them in place within the
discourse community. There is, according to this definition, a
consensus on which words will be used and which will not.
However, as can be seen in his two comments, Bolt (2003, 2004)
could not gain a consensus with himself. He allowed other
authorities in disability studies to comment upon his own, and he
was grateful for these comments, since his purpose was to
stimulate conversation about issues of terminology.
Stimulating conversation negates absolute authority. If there is no
conversation, the debate must be settled, and someone or some
entity has "won" absolute authority over that argument and has
maintained that a consensus has been reached. Authority, though,
is somehow shared and becomes, in that sense, a set of utterances
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itself. Discourse communities, like the blind, may never come to a
consensus; however, Harris (1989, p. 20), a composition scholar,
noted that "one does not need to have consensus to have a
community. Matters of accident, necessity, and convenience hold
groups together as well." In essence, then, discourse communities
do not break down because members disagree with a proposed
language that may be set out to "define" the community.
Although Wittenstein (2004) advocated that "the blind" should
lead the decision-making process, he ignored the point that not all
members of that community will agree. Bolt (2003, 2004)
understood this assertion, since he continued to labor over his
own neologisms--expressions that he himself created. There are,
however, entities that suggest that there is a consensus, those
whom discourse theorist and philosopher Foucault (1976, p. 225)
would call "fellowships of discourse," "whose function is to
preserve or to reproduce discourse, but in order that it should
circulate within a closed community, according to strict
regulations, without those in possession being dispossessed by
this very distribution." First, though, a consensus must be reached
as to which language is going to be preserved. Using Bakhtin's
(1986) theory of the utterance, one can see that language has a
history, that it must come from somewhere, even though Bakhtin
himself may disagree, since he said that the history of that
language has already been acknowledged and fixed, as if it had
existed all along. Despite this contradiction, one can apply
theories of authoritative discourse to one of Bolt's intertextual
authorities, the NFB.
Resolutions?
The 1993 NFB convention drew up many resolutions within the
organization's constitution. One, Resolution 93-01, states,
We believe that it is respectable to be blind, and although we have no
particular pride in the fact of our blindness, neither do we have any
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shame in it. To the extent that euphemisms are used to convey any
other concept or image, we deplore such use. We can make our own
way in the world on equal terms with others, and we intend to do it.
(NFB, n.d., para. 28)
Some of the charges against these euphemisms include the
following:
Some [euphemisms] (such as hard of seeing, visually challenged, and
people with blindness) [are] totally unacceptable and deserv[e] only
ridicule because of their strained and ludicrous attempt to avoid such
straightforward, respectable words as blindness, blind, the blind, blind
person, or blind persons." (para. 24, italics added)
Bolt (2003) cited this charge against the use of euphemisms in his
initial comment and supported his claim by citing another, textual
authority: "The briefest analysis of any dictionary definition will
reveal the word blind to be neither straightforward nor
respectable" (p. 519).
The NFB further disagreed with the use of politically correct
terms for the sole purpose of being politically correct: "The recent
trendy, politically correct form does the exact opposite of what it
purports to do since it is overly defensive, implies shame instead
of true equality, and portrays the blind as touchy and
belligerent" (para. 25). In addition, NFB is against the "person-
first" movement, which, as the name asserts, puts the person
before the disability, such as Bolt's effort, persons with a visual
inhibition. NFB believes that "person-first" is "harmless and not
objectionable when used in occasional and ordinary speech but
[is] totally unacceptable and pernicious when used as a form of
political correctness to imply that the word persons must
invariably precede the word blind to emphasize the fact that a
blind person is first and foremost a person" (para. 24, italics
added). It may be difficult, though, to judge the difference
between "occasional and ordinary speech" and "political
correctness." Becoming aware of political correctness, however
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